(Alert: Pun ahead!) Most voters in the United
States could only hope for that kind of up-front
transparency from candidates here.
In fact, in most cases, just the opposite happens
on this side of the Rio Grande. Here, when
politicians bare all, or come close to it, it
usually is the first step on what turns into a
quick slide down a greased garbage chute that ends
with said politician lying in a disgraced heap in
the career gutter.

New Jersey Freeholder (sort of like a councilman)
Lou Magazzu, who emailed nude pics of himself
to a woman, who then allegedly shared them with
one of his political enemies, who (shocker!)
posted them online. Imagine Magazzu's surprise!
What innocent sharer of digital nude self-
portraits could have expected that outcome?

Oregon Congressman David Wu's career imploded over
a viral photograph he emailed staffers showing him
in a tiger costume, hands raised like kitty claws.
(Grrr-owwwwl!) Like the tiger he hoped to be, Wu
clung to his seat for a short time after the
pictures made the rounds of the Internet, but an
ugly accusation of an "aggressive sexual
encounter" by the 18-year-old daughter of one of
the 56-year-old politician's campaign donor proved
final.

Maybe it's just the digital versions that cause
problems.

Long before GOP rising star Scott Brown ran for,
and won, Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat, he posed nude for Cosmopolitan
magazine. When the 1982 photos of the then-22-
year-old Boston College law student surfaced
during the campaign it didn't hurt him at all.
Instead of slinking off to political ignominy, he
waltzed up to Capitol Hill.

Of course, Brown's and Juarez's success at getting
people to focus on the, ahem, issues, is sure to
spur copycats. In fact, it has already begun. A
23-year-old Polish politician is trying to draw
attention to her party by stripping in a TV commercial.

So this may be a new form of campaigning, and a
lesson for other politicians, as well -- voters
may be willing to pay attention to the naked
truth, after all.